This is a competitive renewal of the rheumatology training program at Boston University School of Medicine. This training grant was competitively renewed successfully in May 2009 under the directorship of Dr. David Felson. Under Dr. Felson's leadership and the active involvement of faculty in rheumatology and other departments, the training program is vibrant and actively training rheumatologists and others to enter academic careers in both clinical and bench laboratory research. The majority of our previously supported trainees have entered academic medicine and most of these, in addition to, or after their T32 support, have successfully competed for funding for their own career development grants. Even others in this training program not supported by T32 have evidenced academic success with high rates of funding and other milestones of academic success. We have trained MD and PhD postdoctoral trainees. There is a prominent clinical research component to this training grant with at least half of fellows pursuing a clinical research track which includes taking courses toward a degree in our School of Public Health and participating in the Boston University CTSI training program. The parent department is funded by two Center grants from NIAMS (CORT and MCRC) in addition to other NIH and private foundation funding. We take advantage of the breadth of bench laboratory experience and excellence at Boston University and of one of the leading clinical research groups in rheumatology to permit our trainees interested in research to train with outstanding scientists doing work of relevance to rheumatic diseases. Among unique elements of our training program are the inclusion of doctorally trained physical therapists as postdoctoral clinical research trainees. The training program is enhanced with the recent recruitment of two outstanding senior scientists Dr. Hyon Choi, a leading arthritis epidemiologist and Dr. Maria Trojanowska, a leading scientist in fibroblast biology.